Childhood train friends?

A few of my childhood friends had trains, some Marx but mostly HO.  Unfortunately, many of them are long since passed (too young, too young!); of the others, I have lost touch and have no idea.

Kind of a downer response, but I am curious to see how many have similar experiences. 

I don't remember ANY childhood friends with trains.  One or two years around the holidays, my dad (and I ?) put up our eclectic mix of Lionel, American Flyer, and Marx (my mom's childhood train).  All my friends would come over and we would run trains in awe, but that was about the end of it.

All my buddies had trains, all in HO. Like seven guys. We all had 4x8 layouts we dabbled in. But one, Bobby J. Is still into trains, HO. He is a scratch builder and does a fantastic job. I on the other hand moved to Lionel because of the heft and sounds and of course the history. We live fairly close to each other and are still friends. Keep in mind this all started when we met in 3rd grade. Now I’m 62, and he is 63. Good topic.

John, interesting topic. When I was growing up all my friends had trains. It was a divided camp. You were either Lionel or American Flyer. I guess what ever your parents or Santa gave you! I had Lionel. I seem to be the only one from the neighborhood that kept up the hobby. I have had some of my old friends visit and after seeing my modest layout wish they were back in the hobby. I have encouraged them to get back into the Worlds Greatest Hobby.

Tom

Reminds me of this line from the Polar Express "At one time most of my friends could hear the bell. But as the years passed, it fell silent for all of them." " Though I have grown old the bell still rings for me. As it does for all who truly believe." How true it is. . .

I didn’t have friends with trains. However, when my mother Relocated my trains to others, I became friends with the kids that got them! I got to enjoy them all over again!

I didn't have any rich friends.    The closest was a kid who had money to buy a whole album when the rest of us were buying 45s.

Nobody had trains, nobody had room.  Trains came out at Christmas, stayed out for three weeks and were packed away.  We did make the rounds to see family Xmas displays but no one had anything up after the holidays.

In the early 1970s my parents were renting the second floor of a carriage house that was part of a larger estate in a wealthy area.  I recall several of my friends and/or their dad's had trains.  One friend's father had a lot of postwar Lionel, I remember the Seaboard switcher's color scheme in particular, but not much else.  Another friend, who lived in a c. 10,000 SF Georgian-style mansion, had a huge O gauge train table in the basement.  It must have been at least 8 x 20 or larger, as their basement was huge and there was a lot of room for the layout.  They also had a doepke (?) outdoor track set up on their lawn, with the hand crank cars.  I always thought that was neat!  Lost touch with all of them, after my parents moved.

After my parents moved, I recall the next door neighbor's mother having Flyer S gauge (which is what we had growing up) and us setting up the trains in their basement to run for a few days. 

After high school in the mid 1980s, when in the US Navy, I met a friend who was from upstate NY and he and his father were into Lionel Postwar.  Lost touch with him after finishing that particular school and going to sea.

NWL

@ConrailFan posted:

Reminds me of this line from the Polar Express "At one time most of my friends could hear the bell. But as the years passed, it fell silent for all of them." " Though I have grown old the bell still rings for me. As it does for all who truly believe." How true it is. . .

ConrailFan, you hit the nail on the head.. "The bell still rings for me". Gets kinda faint on the bad days, but I am lucky to find friends like ya'll

Necrail, yup, ours went back in storage when the tree came down.

Brad, like you I did not have friends with trains. Even the one we had was but an oval that Grandpa bought at the Monkey Wards, and my dad and uncle ran it till we came around.

For Me and my brothers, I had grand children first. My cousin and I shared memories of her American Flyer, and with grandchildren, I am sharing what I have so that they can build memories. Christopher Robin said to Pooh Bear, "We didn't know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun."  And now, as I get more proficient with fixing, I share with my brothers so they can run them under the tree with their youngsters... planting a seed, re-connecting with Cousins, and 'Having Fun".

JOHN, another great topic. Thanks for sharing, Nice to bump into you again after all these years, kindred spirits

Essentially none. I was born in 1948; got my layout in 1955. We were "solid working class" or "middle class" (whatever that meant; meaningless now), as were many others in the neighborhood, so trains could have been bought, but trains were not a "thing" with most people I knew. I had a nice permanent Lionel 027 layout with 2 spurs and a passing siding (only 1 loco, though....). I never put a train around a tree.

But - one guy up the street did have a bit of interest; he had a Kusan "2-rail tinplate" Alco set, then later a Marx 666 set from Sears. Ran it on my Lionel layout a few times. I liked it. But, his interest waned and never came back.

A couple of other guys had AF sets, both PA sets of some sort. One was blue and silver. Neither guy had much interest in trains.

Another guy across the street was literally using his "old" Lionel 2035 as a doorstop (ever picked up one of those?). We were around 13; 1961 or so. I asked if he wanted it, and he said no. So, after we asked his mother, it was mine, and it went into a drawer for years. I actually fixed it up (not to be confused with "restored") when I was in my 40's, complete with a NOS tender from Madison Hardware, still in New York.

That was it. There must have been more, as you saw trains and layouts in stores, especially at Xmas, of course. We had at least one Lionel (AF too?) Service Station (an appliance dealer). But so far as my life was concerned, I was pretty much alone with my hobby. Trains were not broadly a big interest among the kids/adolescents I knew.

I had HO trains on two different layouts, from the time I was 8 years old till I got out of HS and my parents moved. My dad had Lionel Tinplate that we ran at Christmas. I had an uncle and cousin that were into trains , he had Flyer.

My best buddy was not as into trains as I was but be liked them enough to hang out and watch me run them. We both loved Aurora HO race cars though and had several floor tracks over the years. We would race each other and always fight over who got the outside lane. We'd try and have right and left turns so it would even out. If you could win from the inside lane you were king for the day! When the AFX cars came out we were in heaven. We used to tweak them to see how fast they would go.

Yea- the bell still rings for me. My buddy? don't know- we've lost touch over the years.

Bob

Myself, and 3 of my friends had trains. One had American Flyer, one had "O" Lionel, and one had "O27" Lionel. I also had O27 Lionel. The one with O27 still has his trains, but has not set any up in years. He lives about 5 hours from here, and we talk about our trains quite often. We have been friends for 66 years.

Jeff

No.  I grew up in the 80's.  I guess some kids were into trains but I never met one (including me).  The hot toys were Star Wars and Nintendo.

Nope, not one friend had trains and, after about 8th grade, you learned very quickly not to mention the subject - ever.

Interesting topic.  From 1947 to 1959 I lived in northeast Philly in a slightly below middle income neighborhood.  I wasn't very far from the Pennsy Racetrack heading into 30th Street station.  This was the height of the baby boom era and you would have expected there to be loads of kids with electric trains but there were none-none.  We were the only family with electric trains.   We were not that well off but my dad still managed to have a set of trains around the tree every year until he passed in 1953.  We moved to Martinsburg , West Virginia in May of 1959 and the exact scenario repeated itself.  Nobody had trains except for my Grandfather.  I was quite fortunate to grow up around train lovers and I still have my Dad's and Grandad's trains to this day and they still run very well.

I ran trains with only one childhood friend, from 1st through 6th grade. He lived at the end of the block, and we both had Lionel layouts. We used to take our engines and run them on the other guy's layout as foreign power. I had diesels, and he had a steam engine, although I don't remember which one. Then we moved, and I lost track of him. That was about 1961 or so.

A couple years ago, he came to mind, so I searched his name. The only thing that came up was his obituary. He had died several years prior.

My father had American Flyer "O" gauge as a kid. He and my uncle bought me my first Lionel set (2035 freight) in 1950 when I was three.  This set was added to every year until I left for college in 1964. Just about every kid my age had Lionel trains during those years. I'm still in regular contact with my ole' train buddy John.  We met in 1959, and are both now working on our "final" layouts.

Hal

Growing up it was my brother and I with a layout in the basement. No one else I knew had trains.

Now I find maybe one person at different companies who has a layout. I’m in IT so everybody just works long hours.

In my new neighborhood there are quite a few guys interested in my layout. One has a 4x8 for his grandson. So there is hope yet.